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“What?” Alison asked, eyebrow raised.
Joq shook his head. “He means. Look, here,” he pointed at the monitor with a view to behind goals at the southern end of the stadium. “We’re gonna be kicking to this end in the fourth for goals, but you see here,” he pointed at the stadium bursting with opposition supporters, “they’re gonna be drunk, worked up. And well, some players can’t help themselves.”
“What do you mean they can’t help themselves?”
“Showboating after they score, riling up the fans, that kinda thing,” Cameron said. Simo nodded along, grinned.
“Fights,” Simo finished.
Joq rolled his eyes. “Basically. So, you’ll keep an eye on that, and you call down to security on the ground if it gets out of hand.”
“Cameron keep an eye on the front, the rooms. Simo, you got everything else.”
“I’ll swap you for the southern end?” Simo asked Alison.
“No swapping–
“Carn—
“But you can assist and I’ll work with you on everywhere else.”
“Fuckin’ sweet,” Simo bit into his kebab and took a swig of his energy drink. Disgusting. Joq had no idea how he managed to stay skinnier than a rat in a famine.
Joq took a seat in one of the big leather chairs and leaned back in the far corner. He didn’t expect much to happen, and tuned out as he listened to Simo running Alison through the various points of “potential action”, a rundown of the teams, the expectation that the home team would lose, and the ongoing rivalry between the two teams.
“It’s not a rivalry,” Cameron said.
“It is!”
“It’s not. It’s a grudge match cos that fuckwit punched Creed out in the semis.”
Joq winced at the memory, but had to agree with Cameron’s take. What kind of rivalry could an original Victorian team have with a Sydney team? Victoria was the home of AFL, while Sydney was the home of gayness and the NRL. But that uppercut had been a low fucking blow and the fans still hadn’t let it go. He remembered feeling like his heart stopped when George didn’t get up. He’d wanted to run out of this room and onto the field. He couldn’t. He’d had to settle for lurking outside the locker room after the game and asking the coach for an update since George wasn’t answering his phone. Then he’d had to wait for George’s sister to bring him home from the hospital later that night.
He let the memory go now as he looked at George on screen at the centre of his players, Finn near the back of the huddle. Unlike the opponent’s coach, and most coaches, George wasn’t yelling, he didn’t even appear to be raising his voice at all, but his players were nodding, rivetted, and Joq imagined the pep talk: focus, be in the moment. This is yours, take it.
Joq had noticed the meditation books mixed in with the military books, and listened to George talk about his new philosophy over dinner for the last month.
The siren went and the players fanned out. The camera zoomed in on George’s face as he strode for the steps that’d take him to the coach’s box. He looked calm, he looked relaxed. Good.
A shame the same couldn’t be said for the game. It was a shitshow from the first bounce. The only shining light was Finn. Kid got himself his first AFL goal with his first kick in his first game. Joq couldn’t help his smile as Simo shouted: “Woohoo!!! We got ourselves a super-star!!!”
Finn was getting a lot of ‘friendly’ support from his opposition too: sharp hip and shoulders, shoves, all of it legal, off ball and out of sight of the referees. Most rookies would rise to the bait. Not Finn. Joq watched as he took each hit like it hadn’t even happened.
“Well, kid’s Byron, whaddya expect?” Cameron asked the room as the sole screen showing the actual game showed a close up of Finn on the field. He looked sleepy, he looked bored.
Joq soon realised that was his MO. Jogging easy as you like off the ball, eyes like a stoner, body loose, gait relaxed; then he would explode with an unpredictable moment of speed, take the mark, set up and shoot for goal or execute a perfect kick to little Lacy in the pocket.
It was tied going into half-time, which was unusual, and Joq watched as George strode out to the field and met Finn coming in. He said something and Finn grinned. It was quick, both of them turning to jog down the tunnel seconds later, but it was something.
“They seem close,” Alison said.
“Nah,” Simo piped up. “Coach gotta give the star some love, make him feel special. Lord knows we’re fucked this season if anything happens to Flynn.”
By the time they were going into the fourth, the home team was seven points down. Doable. Nothing much had happened as far as security was concerned. And nothing much, on the face of it, happened between George and Finn; although, Joq might’ve been the only one to notice how carefully George was controlling his expression every time the camera cut to his face after Finn made a play. It was like he was deliberately trying not to emote. Everyone caught the clenched fist pump George made when Finn got his second though, maybe not everyone realised like Joq did it was a millennium new year’s level of celebration for George.
Joq tuned into Alison’s monitors. Simo beat him to it.
“Yeah,” he was pointing. “They probably gonna go.”
